


Love (and and other acts of madmen)

by TempestRising



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Gunshot Wounds, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-01-27 10:15:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12579472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TempestRising/pseuds/TempestRising
Summary: ...every nerve Michael has is on edge and his brain won't stop screaming Calum Calum Calum and his hands are still red, and there's still blood under his fingernails from where he cradled Calum's body before they tore them apart."Well honey," the nurse says, "if you've got a god I'd start praying. You might be here a while."Or: Calum gets shot at a concert.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly don't even know where this came from but even though she didn't ask for it this one is, again, for my sister.

**Shots Fired at Concert**

**Chicago Concert Ends in Bloodshed**

**Band Member in Critical Condition**

**Calum Hood, 5SOS Bassist, In Critical Condition**

.***.

They're all shoved in the back of a black car, the locks shutting them in, shouts, "step on it," screams from the girls who've made it outside already, hands banging on the doors and windows, a curse from the driver. Someone in the car is crying. Blood dries on Michael's hands.

"Is anyone else hurt?" Ashton asks, trying to grab Michael by the shoulders as the guitarist keeps ramming his shoulder into the door, as if he means to open it while in motion.

"Calum," Luke says, and it's obvious from the word that he's the one in tears.

"Other than Calum," Ashton says, almost impatiently. "Are the fans okay?" He sounds more Australian when he's upset. He has so many questions and only a few of them can come out at once.

"Calum was the only person shot," Zoe says. She sits upfront with the driver, on his phone, trying to secure a back entrance at the hospital, interrupting her own call to get on the phone with police, texting simultaneously. It's been ten minutes since the first shot fired and they're already on the highway, the driver turning sharply back onto a city street. "Some people stampeded. Bumps and bruises."

"He was aiming for Calum," Michael wrenches his body from Ashton, craning his neck, wondering if the ambulance is in front of or behind them. He'd wanted to get in with Calum but the tides of people had swept them apart and he hates the thought of his band mate scared and alone. "Did you see? He was aiming right for him."

"Did someone call his parents?" Ashton checks his watch automatically and tries to do some mental math. Some time in the morning in Australia. He pats his pockets before remembering his phone had been confiscated before the show.

Zoe, watching him, doles their phones out. "No posting anything until we know," she warns, lowering her gaze at Luke.

"Until we know what?" Luke asks.

Michael's voice was harsh. "Until we know if he's still alive." He nudges Ashton's elbow with his. "I'll call Mali. She's in New York. You good to call his mum?"

"Yeah," Ashton says. It's been twelve minutes since the first shot was fired.

Michael's trying to work his phone but his hands are still slick with barely-dried blood and the iPhone won't recognize his touch as human.

"Mum?" Luke says, and the whole car suddenly goes quiet. Luke fumbles, puts the speaker on. "Mum, something happened."

"Are you alright?" Liz's voice is sharp. "Luke? I saw - on Twitter - is everyone all right?"

Luke has his face buried in his other hand so Michael speaks for him. "No," Michael says, trying to draw in a breath. "Something's happened."

He barely hears Liz's next words. _Oh God_. Said in a tone that implies that she hasn't been waiting to see if something would happen but when, that Liz was an old fashioned woman who knew that nothing, not fame or worldwide tours, came free, and she's been waiting on the sidelines for the other shoe to drop. She feels, in that moment, a perverse wave of relief that her Luke was okay, that he had called her and his voice was quavery but strong. And then the relief is replaced by a slam of shame and fear so sharp that she actually sits down, like girls do in books, because all of the sudden she can't hold in her head a recent picture of Calum, can only see the boy he had been, shy under a mop of dark hair, young and bursting with potential.

"You boys take care of each other," she orders. "I'll call Joy."

"I should," Ashton begins to say.

"It should come from a mother," Liz says. She knows this like she knows her own name. Only mothers understand what it is like to fear your child's safety, a constant knot of fear, persistent as a toothache. "Call when - when you know."

.

They're told they can't see him. That he's already being prepped for surgery. They're told to take a seat. Michael is pulled from the knot of boys by a middle-aged black nurse and led to a sink. "Wash," she tells him. "Warm water. Scrub hard. I'll get you a towel." She rummages. Comes up with a worn but clean real towel, terry, who knows where these things come from in a big hospital like this. "Is that boy in there your boyfriend, honey?" 

"We're in a band," Michael says, thickly. The blood's not really coming off. "He's not my boyfriend," he says, even though that's not quite true, but now in the hospital is not the time to think about recent developments. "He's like my brother."

"Oh honey," the woman says, and it's the way she says it, like she sees this every night. "You're not from around here, are you?"

"Australia," he says.

"Where your parents at?"

"Australia," Michael says again. "We've got - we're on tour. There's a big tour. We've got people."

The woman holds out the towel, and Michael turns off the tap, and she's rubbing his hands dry, like mothers do for their sons, and everything about the moment feels strangely intimate and every nerve Michael has is on edge and his brain won't stop screaming Calum Calum Calum and his hands are still red, and there's still blood under his fingernails from where he cradled Calum's body before they tore them apart.

"Well honey," the nurse says, "if you've got a god I'd start praying. You might be here a while."

.

Ashton is handed a stack of paperwork that he can't make heads or tails of, so he just fills in Calum's name and some emergency contact stuff. "History of diabetes?" he shakes his head. He just doesn't know. Mali is supposed to be here in five hours. Caught a red-eye out of New York. It is nearing midnight. It has been an hour since the shooting. "Well," he says, "at least we know he's never been pregnant." He skips that page.

Their crew is huddled in groups around the room, casting glances at the boys, no one quite brave enough to come over and talk to them. Michael tends to throw off Don't Fuck With Me vibes even when his arms aren't painted in blood. Michael leans over Ashton's shoulder. "Fuck," Mikey says. "I don't know. I think he said he's got a history of mental illness. Depression. Schizophrenia. Something."

Ashton ticks the box. "Helpful, for bullet wounds."

"I've been thinking," Luke says out of nowhere. Luke hasn't really spoken since the venue. He clicks his phone on and off, the news stories flashing. "Like, do you think it's a race thing?"

Ashton's been thinking the same thing but didn't want to say it first. "I don't know," he says. "Like, why? There's no Kiwis in the U.S."

"I just can't think of another reason," Luke says.

"Maybe there is no other reason." Ashton scans the list of possible medical conditions again. Blinks rapidly. "Maybe it just happened."

"He was aiming for him, though," Michael says for about the hundredth time. "There's even a video."

He holds up his phone and Ashton smacks it away. "I don't need to see a video. I was there."

Two sets of eyes on him. "Ash," Michael begins, and that's how Ashton knows he's starting to scare them, and he's never wanted to scare anyone.

"I think it's a race thing," Luke says, like if he says it firmly enough it will be true. "The U.S. is crazy. All white supremacy shit. Remember what happened to Zayn? Every time we were here. All those signs outside the hotel rooms."

"Islamophobia is one thing," Ashton says, trying to get his voice more neutral-sounding. "Who in the U.S. can have any reason for hating Kiwis?"

Luke shrugs, eyes trained on a point far away. "I keep thinking about Zayn's face, do you remember? When he heard what they were saying?"

"I don't remember," Michael says. He's rubbing his hands, trying to flake the blood off. "I don't remember anything."

Ashton puts pen to paper again. Calum T Hood, he writes at the top of each sheet. Calum has been in surgery for almost thirty minutes.

.

A doctor comes out at the three hour mark. It will be a while, he says. He lists a lot of things that are wrong and only a few stick in Luke's mind. Punctured lung, two broken ribs, damaged aorta. His heart stopped, the doctor says. His heart stopped twice. It will be eight or nine more hours. You may want to go someplace comfortable. 

A few of the crew stretch and leave, mumbling apologies. "It's fine," Luke says. What a strange dynamic, he thinks sometimes, that he's barely twenty-one and these roadies in their thirties are taking orders from, well, him. "Go get some sleep." He raises his voice. He's the frontman, sometimes, and sometimes even Michael looks at him to call the shots. "If anyone wants to sleep - on the buses, in a hotel, I don't care - we'll text, with updates." He clears his throat. "Thanks for staying this long."

Someone makes coffee. Zoe comes over and they know what she's going to say. "We're not leaving," Luke says, mulishly.

"You're not helping him here. Even when he gets out of surgery there's post-op, and he'll be exhausted. You won't see him for hours." Zoe's voice turns pleading. "You need your rest, boys, you'll make yourself sick."

"We're not leaving," Michael says. Don't Fuck With Us, his tone says. Zoe comes back with pillows. They abandon the chairs for the floor and stretch out and out and out. People have been texting all night, and all three of their phones vibrate. The lights in the waiting room are like day, all the time. Their little entourage has been cornered off somehow but there is still the sounds of a hospital, the intercom, the phones ringing, laughter from the nurses.

In spite of all of it, Luke curls into Michael's side and breathes in deep and sleeps.

.

When Luke wakes up its to the murmuring of voices. He blinks. "Hiya, Lukey," Niall rubs his eyes. "Caught a flight outta LA. Don't tell anyone I'm here, you've already got a vigil outside." 

"A vigil?"

"About five thousand girls. Candles. Pictures. Looks like he's already fucking dead."

"Is he?" Luke asks. He'd dreamed, and in his dream Calum had been dead for a long, long time.

"No," Ashton says. Ashton is sitting back on a chair, drinking something steaming, his eyes red rimmed. "Calum's a fighter. It'll be a while yet."

Michael's arms are pulling Luke close again and Luke suspects he'd only slept a few hours the first time. The floor is cold but Michael is warm and he closes his eyes and lets himself be lost in the soothing cadence of Niall and Ashton's murmured conversation.

.

At five-thirty the police come in with all the information they have. All the boys are awake. Niall had charmed a nurse into grabbing them Starbucks as soon as one opened and they all chugged real cappuccinos as if it was their last night on earth. The police say, this is going to be released to the press in a couple hours. They say, we thought you should know what we know. 

The shooter was a man named George Liebowitz. Third army trooper. Two tours in Desert Storm. A fifty-three year old dad. Honorably discharged. Worked at the airport with a dog that sniffed out bombs, sometimes, and drugs, and fruit.

Liebowitz had been arrested several times in the past ten years, the most recent and serious: assault and battery. Liebowitz had pleaded PTSD. His target had been an eighteen-year-old black male who had run from the dog that had sniffed out an apple in his pocket.

Michael keeps playing with his Starbucks lid, pulling it off and pushing it back on again. "What does this have to do with Calum?"

Liebowitz had three daughters. Oldest is twenty, youngest is thirteen. They had all been at the concert. Liebowitz drove them, told them he was going to grab dinner and would pick them up when it was over, then he climbed a fence and let the crowd swallow him. He had two rifles under his coat. It was a cool enough day that no one questioned a trench coat. The first really cold day of fall.

Luke shakes his head, not really keeping up. "Sure," he says, "But why Calum?"

The police woman sighs. "The only person who knows for sure is Liebowitz, and he's dead."

"There isn't always a motive," the police man says. He looks really young. "I know on TV there always is but in real life it's a lot more complicated. Sometimes people just kill other people." He stifles a yawn.

"Calum isn't dead," Luke says.

"They're going to say it's race," the police woman says. "The media. Your - friend - Calum - he's Asian?"

Michael closes his eyes. He feels tired even though he slept basically all night, his head buried in Luke's neck. "No," he says, and is about to explain it when Ashton puts a hand on his shoulder. "Sure," Ashton says. "Does it matter?"

"They're going to say it's race," the police woman says again. "And with the priors we're going to explore that direction for a little while."

"So what's the plan from here?" Niall's been standing there the whole time, arms crossed over his chest, keeping an eye on the Australians as the news sinks in. "I mean this guy's already dead. So in terms of legal action..."

"Our job is to make sure this is really a lone wolf. You might pursue a civil suit," the police woman says. "But you'd have to talk to a lawyer about that." She squints at Niall for the first time. "Do I know you?"

"I'm Nick," Niall says, and he suddenly sounds old. "From Backstreet Boys."

.

The surgery is still going on when Mali arrives at eight forty-five. Her boots clack on the tile floor. She crosses the room, draws an arm back, and slaps Michael across the face, swinging from her shoulder. Michael, who had been rising to greet her, is thrown to the side, nearly to the ground, blood blossoming from a ring on Mali's hand. 

"Hey hey hey," Ashton puts his body between the girl and boy. "What the fuck, Mal?"

The sister is shaking, hands balled into fists. "You promised, Michael Clifford."

"I know," Mikey wipes the blood form his face. He shrugs off Luke, who is trying to steady him. "I know." He spreads his arms wide. His cheek's really bleeding. "You want to hit me again? It'll make us both feel better. Come on. Hit me."

"I wish it was you in there," Mali says, malice in every syllable.

Michael blinks and there's a flicker of emotion across his face, sadness, regret. "I saw the gun," they 're surrounded by whatever crew stuck out the night and a few that came back after power naps, everyone watching Mali-Koa with wary eyes. "I saw it at the last second. I wasn't fast enough. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I wasn't fast enough."

Mali stares at him and for a second Ashton thinks she's going to relent, pull the boy in her arms. Michael's the only one without siblings and so all their siblings have adopted him. Lauren hangs off Michael's every word. But Mali stays away. "You told me you'd keep him safe. You crossed your heart. You know how many times I defended this band to our mum? Defended Cal? Because I thought you were going to take of him."

"Mal," Ashton begins.

She holds up a hand. "If he dies," her voice hitches. She stares at Michael. "If he dies, I'll never forgive you." Her eyes exactly like two pieces of steel.

Michael meets the gaze head on. "If he dies," he says, seriously, "I'll never forgive me, either."

.

Eleven hours into the surgery Luke's sure he's going crazy. He wishes, desperately, for his mother, but feels like saying that out loud will just make him sound even younger than he is, and Michael will tease him. But his mother was on tour with them for so long, and had taken care of them all so often, that Luke hadn't even realized how hard it is to take care of himself. 

Friends keep texting them. Niall's taken over replying, keeping their phones and passwords straight somehow, thumbs moving seemingly disconnected from his mouth. He keeps up a steady patter of bracing positivity mixed with curses. It's full day outside and the girls are moved a hundred yards away from the hospital. They were disturbing the patients.

Someone comes by with oatmeal and granola bars and fruit and, later, hoagies and wraps and chips and Luke doesn't eat unless it's put into his hand and so Ashton's been feeding him. "Eat this," Ashon will say, nudging a turkey sub into Luke's hand, and Luke will eat. Drink this, a bottle of water. Eat this, an apple. Mikey's over at the nurse's station every few minutes, looking for updates. They haven't gotten one for hours, not since a doctor staggered out, haggard looking. Heart stopped again, he said. He's a trooper. Anyone want to give us some blood?

Ashton and Niall were a match but Niall's been feeling claustrophobic even in the big waiting room so it's Ashton who goes back, and, since they're there, Mikey and Luke do, too. Even if they're not a match for Calum, they says, they should do something.

Now Mikey is motioning to them and they flock over to the nurse's station, Luke and Ashton. "He's stabilized," a young nurse says. She smiles at them. "He's not - with surgery there's no such thing as out of the woods. But because he's so young and healthy we can pretty much say that -"

"He's not dying," Michael says with something like wonder in his voice.

"Well," the nurse says, smiling timidly. "Not today. And hopefully not for a long, long time."

Because they're in a teaching hospital there's a viewing booth, like when you go to a sports game. They're allowed to go in only if they don't distract the doctors and only for a few minutes and then, boys, please get some sleep. Niall and Zoe tag along. Michael is wringing his hands. He has mostly gotten the blood off except for right below the fingernails.

They sit. Calum is small. He is hooked up to tubes and wires and monitors and surrounded by people and machines and tools. He is naked. His chest is sliced and pried open. Luke didn't think he was squeamish but he takes one look and vomits immediately into a trashcan by Ashton's foot. This is the best modern medicine can do. He thinks, irrationally, about how for a long, long time Calum wouldn't take off his shirt around them, and they were all young and had various levels of body acceptance and gradually they'd all turned into exhibitionists and Luke thinks, now, about the long, long scar Calum will carry for the rest of his life.

"What's that music?" Michael asks. There's a couple of interns in the room, watching.

"Surgery takes forever," one of them says. "So there's always music. Usually Doctor Wertzer likes classic rock. He's been listening to this shit all night."

Luke listens. This shit is _them_. It's Sounds Good Feels Good. It's "Castaway," now. And Luke feels a surge of affection for whoever it was in that operating room who'd thought about slipping that CD in and playing it over and over and over again. Like a prayer.

.

Calum's out of surgery but somehow that doesn't make Ashton feel better. Like, at all. 

The lead surgeon comes out to talk to them. He's an older man with tired eyes and big, knobbly hands that he rests on his legs. He's been on his feet for nearly fifteen hours. "You're smart kids, you know this was serious. He crashed once on my table and twice in the ambulance. No, I don't think you should tell him that. You're friends? Good. Reassure him. Be familiar faces. He's going to be here for a while."

The biggest problem, the surgeon says, will be breathing. That because Calum's lung collapsed it will be impaired. Forever. That they will have to take out the tube that was currently breathing for him, and once that tube is out Calum will either breathe normally or he won't. Also they had broken open his rib cage to repair the bullet wound near his heart, so every movement for a month was going to hurt like a bitch. Laughing, crying, panting. He'll need therapy.

"But," the doctor says to their stunned, tear-stained faces. "He's alive."

The surgeon stands, stretches, his joints popping. "I'mma take your CD home with me, boys. I like to remember nights like these. Even if it doesn't feel like it now, what you've experienced today is a miracle."

He turns to leave and Luke touches the white, white lab coat. "Can we see him?"

"Sure," the doctor said. "Splash some water on your faces. He'll be waking up soon."

.

They file into the room behind Mali. She's standing by a window, sunlight behind her. There's girls outside, thousands of girls. Ashton twitches the curtains closed. They stare at Calum. 

He is bare from the waist up and there are monitors everywhere, over his heart and on his throat and tubes connected to his belly and to his arms and to his nose and Ashton, out of the corner of his eye, sees Luke double over again and Ashton pulls him close.

Michael, after a nervous glance at Mali, leans forward and carefully kisses Calum's hair.

That should be it. All the stories promise that a kiss wakes the sleeping princess. But Calum's monitor beeps steadily and he sleeps on.

"It's exhausting, fighting for your life," a nurse says. "We can call you when he wakes up."

"No," Michael says. "No, we'll stay."

They all sit, Luke and Ashton on the bed across the room, Mali curled in a chair in the corner, Niall on Calum's right, peeking out the window, juggling five or six phones. He's updating Twitter for the first time. He has a picture of Michael kissing Calum's head, a picture of the tears slipping down Michael's cheeks, of the heart monitor in the background. He posts it to the 5sos Instagram and links it to Twitter and retweets it from his own account and from Calum's. He captions it, Thank you for your thoughts. He's waking up!

Then Niall leans his head against the wall and lifts the curtain a little and starts trying to memorize the faces of the girls in the crowd.

.

Ashton's finally asleep. He'd joined Michael and Luke on the bed and somehow they all squeeze to fit. Even though they promised each other to stay awake, to wait for Calum, all three, one after the other, falls to sleep, a sleep like the darkness at the bottom of a great lake, a sleep like space, quiet except for the hum of the universe. 

Luke wakes up, planning on taking a piss, and he wanders over to check on Calum. Mali and Niall are keeping eye on him but Luke needs to know. Which is why he's the first member of the band to see Calum's eyes open.

It's a terrible sight. Calum wakes to pain, that much is obvious from the agony etched into his features. He wakes to fear. The monitor jumps with his heart rate. Niall goes to grab his hand but Luke gets there first. "Hey, Cal, hey," Luke doesn't know what he's doing. "Hey you're okay. You're okay. You just came out of surgery but you're going to be fine. Hey, Cal, you're going to be fine."

Cal's mouth moves. Mali lifts his oxygen mask, like the nurse said she could, and slips an ice cube into his mouth. Calum takes a deep breath and winces. His mouth moves again. His voice a croak, a whisper: "Are you okay?"

It's all too much. Luke staggers into the background as Mikey and Ashton swarm awake. Luke's crying again. He hates that he keeps crying, but now he's shaking too, like a leaf, like a child. Someone grips his shoulders. "Let it out, Lukey. Let's just go into the hallway. There's a lad. Let it out."

He cries into Niall's arms and Niall holds him, like a mother holding a babe, crushing Luke to his chest as Luke sobs and sobs. He's sure, at that moment, that he will think of this minute in ten years, twenty, a hundred. He knows with absolute certainty that when he looks back on this awful day this will be the picture he will hold in his head. Calum asking are you okay? as if he hadn't just died. Niall smelling of the antiseptic of the hospital and the spices of his shampoo and home. This feeling in his chest that Luke realizes, all at once, is relief.

.

Calum sleeps and wakes and sleeps again. They tell him the story, like they're writing their own history. They say, you were shot at the concert. They say, no, we're all fine. They say, sleep Cal. You did good. You're okay. Surgery went great. Here's the doc. Here's a nurse. Hey, don't be embarrassed. It's fine. It's all fine. Hey, try not to cry. Hey, Cal, we didn't mean it like that, it's just it'll hurt those ribs of yours. They say, go to sleep. They say, of course we're staying. 

They don't tell him that his heart stopped three times. They don't tell him that the shooter was also dead. They don't tell him about the increasingly wild conspiracy theories on Twitter.

They keep people out of the room. Their crew is joined by so many others. Friends. Singers and songwriters and producers and people who were just nearby and those who weren't but made the flight anyway. Niall keeps them all updated, keeps up a stream of medical information, brings out nurses who could explain better, implores their friends to be quiet. The lobby steadily fills with flowers, and Niall arranges for them to be sent to every room in the hospital. When Harry arrives he sends Niall to sleep and takes over. He doesn't say much but Ashton can feel Harry's eyes following him and knows all at once that One Direction feels responsible for them.

The vigil outside breaks up. Flowers and cards and sweets and homemade bracelets are left behind in the thousands. Harry sends them over to the children's hospital.

A police officer comes by again. This is forty hours after the shooting. Ashton is shaken awake. He's on the bed next to Calum's. He fell asleep with one arm around Luke and one arm outstretched towards Calum.

The officer talks to Ashton in the hallway. "Are you the drummer?" The officer is fifty-ish, balding but stern and solid-looking.

"Yeah."

"Your drums have been taken as evidence. There was a bullet found inside the bass. We think it was a miss fire, but we're looking into it anyway."

Ashton blinks. "A bullet inside the drum?"

"Damndest thing." The officer flips his pad closed. "Musta been stopped by the metal or something. Would've blown out your knee, son."

Ashton doesn't know how to respond so he just says, "huh."

"Good to see the kid's out of the woods." The officer jerks his chin back towards Calum's room. "You take care now, you hear?"

"Yeah." Ashton is still trying to process a bullet to the drum. "Thanks."

.

They sell more music in the time that Calum is in the hospital than they have since the week the album was released. 

Luke posts a picture of Cal propped on his side, the tubes coming out of his front and back, Calum with his tongue poking out of his mouth as he reads a card someone sent him.

Ashton posts a picture of the vases and teddy bears in the lobby before they're taken over to the children's hospital. He captions it, simply, thank you.

They cancel the rest of the tour.

Another night approaches and Calum begs them all to go get some sleep. He says, "you look like shit," in that whisper-thin voice he has now. He pushes Mikey away with his fingertips, weak as a kitten.

They go. Mali and Niall and Harry stay.

Luke gets a text from his mother: Just landed.

Ashton gets a text from Harry: Come back to the hospital.

.

As soon as Luke sees his mother he runs across the room and buries himself in her chest, and he's about three feet too tall for that to actually work but he tries, making himself smaller in her arms, or perhaps she's larger, somehow, made larger by the demands of motherhood. "His lung collapsed," Luke says. "He's in surgery again." 

He notices Joy hovering behind his mother. Luke doesn't know what to do. He barely knows what to do with his own emotions and he's just Calum's friend, and he's empathetic enough to realize the magnitude of a child. He swallows. Looks at Joy. Gently, so gently, wraps her in a hug. She's a tiny woman and not the most hands-on affectionate of mothers - Luke doesn't think he'd ever hugged her before in his life. But she accepts the hug now. "I'm sorry," he says, over and over, "I'm sorry this happened. I'm sorry we couldn't keep him safe."

Mali appears and Luke transfers her mother over to her waiting arms. Watches the women bend towards each other, like willows in the waiting room.

Liz goes around and hugs them all. Hugs Michael, who is gazing at the OR's doors like he's waiting for Calum to walk out of them. Hugs Ashton, who is beating his knees with the flats of his palms, a persistent drumming. She opens her arms wide and hugs Niall and Harry. And then they wait.

.

Calum opens his eyes. It feels like the worst pain he'd ever felt, all at once, radiating from his chest. He thinks, I've been shot. And, strangely, that thought is accompanied by embarrassment. Embarrassment that everyone has had to drop everything and wait for him to catch up. 

He sees Mikey asleep in the chair next to him and wants to talk about this feeling, because Mike's good for getting your head on straight, listening to a whole litany of problems and boiling it down to one sentence and one solution. Calum stretches out his fingers. He can't move much. He touches Mikey's cheek.

Someone else moves into his line of vision and the movement is so fast that Calum startles and almost screams and that hurts so much that he just lies there, breathing hard, for a long, long minute.

Mikey is petting his arm. "It's okay, you're okay, breathe in and out. Just like that. In. And. Out."

Mali is giving him another ice cube. Has she done this before? It feels like she's done it before, like they've fallen into a rhythm.

His mother comes into view. Calum wonders if he's dreaming. "Oh my," Mum has a hand over her mouth. "Look what happened to my boy."

The boys keep reminding him not to cry but right now Calum can't help it. Everything will be okay now, he's sure of it. The cavalry has been called in. He can rest now.

.

Five days after the shooting Calum is moved to a different part of the hospital, to his own room. Harry and Niall leave apologetically, promising they will be back. "Liam's going spare," Niall says and he's almost smiling but the bags under his eyes are huge and he yawns instead. "So don't be surprised if we bring reinforcements." 

They've gotten into a routine, taking shifts so Calum never has to wake up alone. The mothers are perceptive. Joy and Liz have a shift schedule, too, but know when to leave the room so the others can talk, often whisking Mali away with them. They come back with comfortable clothes for Calum, with food, with warm drinks.

During one of the times they're gone it's just 5sos in the hospital room. Calum can sit up, can drink fluids. When they change his bandages the bullet wounds are puckered oozing scars. "Is it bad," Cal asks, "that I sort of want everyone to leave?"

The other three look at him. They wonder if they are included in the Everyone. They've been treating him differently. They all get quiet when he talks, like he's a prophet or something. No one used to listen when he talked. "Not necessarily," Ashton hedges.

"It's just," Calum continues. He gulps in a breath. They all avert their gazes as he tries to breathe. The heart monitor beeps loudly but not erratically enough for a nurse to come in. "It's just that I feel like - like I'm holding everyone up? Like, this thing happened and now everyone has to come and pay attention to me?"

Luke grips his hand. "It's not like you asked to be shot."

"I know," Cal says. "I know! It's just," he breathes in, too deep, and he coughs and that hurts like the bones are actually grating against each other and then breathing is hard again. They wait for him to get it under control. "I feel like a freak," Calum says.

It's not a statement that encourages discussion. Luke rubs a finger over Calum's knuckles.

There's a knock at the door. Zoe sticks her head in. Clears her throat. "Maybe I'll come back when the mums are here," she says.

"Just spit it out," Michael demands.

Zoe opens the door wider. Three girls are there, all teenagers. Mousy Midwestern girls in ponytails and hoodies. They're obviously sisters, the resemblance in the hook of the nose, the freckles, the way they hold themselves, almost bent over, as if they'd recently been kicked.

"Hi," the youngest says. She looks thirteen.

Zoe coughs. "These are -"

"My name is Abby," the oldest says. She's around their age, nineteen or twenty. "These are my sisters Kirsten and Ruth. Our father's name was George Liebowitz."

It's Michael who registers what this means first. He had risen halfway to his feet. They had been around enough teenage girls these past years to know what they wanted. Hugs. Happiness. He collapses back into the chair. "What the hell, Zoe?" He looks past the girls. Zoe's looking at Calum.

"We wanted to say sorry," the middle daughter - Kirsten? - says. "We're so, so sorry. Dad wasn't like that. We had no idea he'd hurt anyone. We didn't even know he had a gun in the house."

"Well," Mikey bites out, "obviously he did."

The words make the girl shrink in the doorway. "Yeah," she says, quietly.

The oldest, Abby, places a hand on her shoulder. "We want to say we're sorry. If we hadn't been at the concert Dad wouldn't have hurt Calum. I mean, if we never started listening to you guys in the first place..."

"We made you a card," the youngest says. She extends one hand, shyly. Ashton takes it and passes it back to Calum.

Abby watches him read it. "Are you okay?" she asks.

"Yeah," Calum says without looking up. He's been answering this question for days. He puts the card down and Luke slides it away to read for himself. "I'm okay."

"No thanks to your Dad," Michael says to the ceiling.

"Shut up, Mikey." That's Ashton and though his tone is mild there's an edge to it. Ashton looks at the girls. "I'm sorry your Dad is dead," he says.

The youngest girl presses herself into the oldest's side.

"It's not your fault," Calum says from the bed. Everyone in the room looks at him. His normally tan skin is wan. It's Chicago and winter is coming and they all seem to be losing their shine. "I forgive you," he says, trying for a minimum of awkwardness. If people are going to treat him like he's a prophet he might as well act like one.

Abby's face contorts and for a moment they all think she's going to cry. They've dealt with a lot of crying girls, but usually younger teens. Whenever older people cry it always seems like the end of the world. She scrubs a hand across her face. "Calum, can I give you a hug?"

"Be careful," Mikey snaps. Luke punches his arm. "What? They need to be careful."

"I'm not made of glass," Calum says.

The girls come over one by one, all whispering apologies. They hug Calum around the shoulders and then step away quickly, swiping at tears. Ashton touches Abby's shoulder. "You are not your father's actions," he says, like he's been coming up with that thesis statement his whole life.

She nods and sweeps out of the room, her sisters trailing behind her.

.

Four months after the shooting things are busier than ever, but they're also not. 

They're back in the U.S., about to try to tour again. Everyone - the other boys and Management and the label and their friends and everyone - had told Calum to take as much time as he needed. Seriously. The tour can wait. And it probably could. Since the shooting their album has been selling like crazy and they've been doing the bare minimum in way of promo. A couple of radio shows with interviewers they liked, all of whom admirably try to talk music for a couple of minutes before turning to Calum and grilling him.

"And you still don't know why it happened?" Nick Grimshaw asks. This isn't on air, just in the studio afterwards.

Calum shakes his head. He's stopped asking himself why. Race has been accepted as the why, though no one, including Calum, is entirely happy with that explanation and people speculate online about his sexuality and religion. He tries to stay away from Twitter. The only thing he knows is that it was deliberate. That he had been the target. It's a terrifying thought, but almost comforting. He's happy it's him and not the other boys. They don't believe him but it's true. Better him than Luke, who always tries to act older than he is. Better him than Mikey who shone brighter than the fucking sun. Better him than Ashton, who was playing mother hen, who took care of everyone. Calum is the last and the least. Better him.

He says as much to Mikey when they're back in America. They're ending in Chicago. It feels like the wrong climax but that's just how the schedule works out.

"Fuck that," Michael says. They're near enough to a window to see out but not near enough for anyone to see them. Michael suggested they go outside on the balcony - it's balmy in Houston - but immediately vetoed himself when he saw something in Calum's face close. "You don't get to be so fucking calm about this, Cal. Get mad."

"I'm not mad," Calum says. "I'm not mad! I wish it didn't happen. I wish I didn't hold up the whole tour. I wish you guys would stop worrying about me. But I just can't - the guy's dead. He's dead. His daughters are sorry. And I don't get to come off as a hero in this whole thing so I get to be happy it wasn't you, okay?" He swipes the back of his hand across his eyes.

"Cal..."

"Fuck you, Mikey," Calum says, like he means it. "I'm happy it's not you, okay? This fucking sucks." He's worried about breathing wrong, about bending wrong. His ribs twinge. There's an ache in his stomach. And he wakes up sometimes in a cold sweat because he's sure, so sure, that he can feel a bullet still inside, rattling around.

He's pulled into a hug. He's being hugged a lot now. He remembers starting something else with Mikey, before, but he won't be he first one to bring that up. If anything he feels closer to Mikey now, closer than sex. He lets himself be hugged. "I'm not mad," Calum says. "I just wish it was over."

That's part of the reason he's been so adamant about getting the show back on the road. He needs to make more memories on stage. Memories that don't include the searing pain of being shot, the screams of the girls, the way everyone ducked, the way Michael had held him and then been pulled away and for a few seconds Calum had just been alone, bleeding on stage, his friends gone, leaving him to die.

"I wish Luke would look at me," Calum says, since he's wishing for things. Luke seems to leave every room Calum walks into.

"He's just a dumb kid," Mikey says, bracingly. "I'll talk to him. He'll come around."

Cal buries his face in his knees. "Yeah."

"And Ash will come around. He's just - he wants to be in control of things."

"He doesn't talk to me," Calum says. "He just keeps asking if I'm all right. You're the only one who talks to me."

"I'll talk to him," Mikey says.

"No," Calum says. "I should." His ribs hurt. It's been a long day. Their first show is tomorrow and they had tech most of the day, and Calum could feel everyone looking at him, not just the boys but everyone, the roadies, the venue's security, the light guys, everyone.

He's had friends texting him for months, friends who say they'll meet up at various stages of the tour, and Calum wants to see them but doesn't quite know how to say that he's tired.

He's already tired. He closes his eyes. Feels the bullet rattling between his organs.

"We'll get through this." Mikey's arm is still draped over his shoulder.

Right now it feels like that's a wish, too. It feels like Calum's shattered everyone into a hundred tiny pieces and he doesn't know how to fix himself, let alone everyone else.

He's bundled onto one of the beds. He hides his wince. He doesn't need Mikey to feel guilty. The act of a madman, the therapist had said. Not your fault. The act of a madman.

Calum squeezes his eyes shut. It's late. He'll just sleep here. He feels Mikey get on the same bed. He wishes they were doubling up for a different reason. He wishes he could fall in love instead of falling apart. He feels lips against his forehead. It's a different kind of kiss, a gesture that feels sweet and ancient. "We're happy you're alive, Cal, just remember that."

"Okay," Calum says. Mikey shakes out his medication and makes him swallow and Calum falls asleep listening to the pounding of Michael's heart.


	2. Young blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which they go back on tour and Calum is not completely okay.

_And in the end, we were all just humans...drunk on the idea that love, only love, can heal our brokenness._

F. Scott Fitzgerald

.***.

That summer really begins with the fireworks.

They're back in the U.S. It's the Fourth. They've been touring for a month now and everything is the same but also different. Ashton can't be in the same room as Calum without asking him ten or twenty times if he's okay and Luke can't be in the same room at all - if it's just the two of them Luke will mumble an excuse and leave, and the only good thing about being four months post-surgery is that Calum can just say the ache in his heart is from the damn bullet.

And he does ache, a persistent pain that waxes and wanes throughout the day. He was shot three times. Two bullets to the left lung that led to a complete collapse, Calum's lungs filling with blood, drowning, and the doctors had patched him up but his breathing isn't great and for weeks he'd been stuck in a wheelchair until one day he just refused, said he was getting out of bed under his own power or not at all, and he had a great physical therapist named Carmen who called him a spitfire and to be her guest and so eventually he started walking. But even four months down the line, singing with a lung that had completely collapsed isn't easy. And he hates himself for it.

The third bullet lodged squarely in his small intestine. No exit wound. Cut up his guts pretty bad. They ended up removing ten feet of intestine. Chew your food, a doctor told him, seriously. Chew and chew and chew. Lots of liquids. Calum doesn't know if it's because of that bullet in that place or just because this was his life now but he has no appetite. Muscle he'd worked so hard to get sliding off. Exhausted all the time but unable, completely unable to eat.

But they're on tour, because the doctors, they said this was his life now. That the pain was probably chronic. That it would probably get a little better, but when he was an old man it would be much worse. So if he wanted to be a part of this band - if he wanted to prove he could still do this. Well. No time like the present.

Now it's summertime. He clings to Michael, who is the same but different. The same in that he'll be the one to pull Calum into the studio to write and he'll sit up all night because now Calum can't sleep, either, and they'll watch football even though Mikey can't really sit through a whole game without getting bored, and he runs his hands through Calum's hair. But it's different. Michael's always been protective, but recently he hasn't left Calum's side, and Calum's just not a good enough person to insist.

Case in point. The Fourth. They aren't in Chicago yet but that's looming on the horizon. They're in Philadelphia and there's a hundred parties and they end up on a rooftop at one point and the drinks are coming and there's a bunch of fairy lights and girls rubbing against guys near the balcony and there's jokes and sex and sweat and the music is good. Calum keeps track of the bass line, absent-mindedly drumming his thumb against the red Solo cup.

People keep coming up to him. Someone he once knew but has forgotten the name of, an American, is telling him why he should be excited to be in Philadelphia on the Fourth, history spilling out of this boy like he can't help himself. Calum brings his beer up to his forehead. It's cool and the night is warm and sticky and he thinks, suddenly, that it's winter back home. It's been years since he's been in Australia in the winter.

They've long since track of Luke and Ashton. He hopes they found nice girls with foul mouths, girls who like Springsteen and wear cowboy boots and Daisy Dukes in honor of the holiday, girls who have never been West, not in their whole lives. Calum doesn't want a girl this year. Michael has an arm draped around his shoulders, one hand splayed over the spot where the worst of the scarring is, and Calum wonders if he does this on purpose. Shield him.

He's never loved a boy before. If he hadn't been shot it would probably be a priority, figuring out this sexuality crisis. But he was shot and now Michael's always there, smelling like soap and sweat, like possibilities, and they're both huge, tall and older and Michael's gotten more muscles than he needs out of this whole touring business, but at night they share a bed for no good reason. They both run warm. They kick off all the hotel blankets, all the bunk blankets, all the pillows. Calum feels like every night's gonna be his last and he doesn't need a therapist to help him figure out how he could possibly think that.

They haven't even kissed, not since the shots were fired, and Calum doesn't blame Michael, not at all. It's another lesson open heart surgery teaches you: take what you can get.

Another person comes up to Calum and asks how he is. It's a party. He says he's fine. He smiles while he says it. He laughs. He pretends it's true.

The DJ's caving into holiday pressure. "Born in the U.S.A." starts up. The first firework booms.

Here's the thing Calum had both known and never thought about: fireworks sound like gunshots.

He tastes the adrenaline. It's like pennies. Like blood. He slams a fist into Michael's shirt, drags him to the floor. Another shot goes off, blooming bright over the lip of the rooftop. Everyone is cheering and it sounds like the crowd and he wonders if the girls are okay, if their fans are okay, if anyone else has been shot.

"Oh, Cal." Hands on his back. "Breathe, baby. It's just fireworks. I know what it sounds like - I didn't think - it's just fireworks, babe, it's okay, you're okay."

Cal unfists the shirt, it stays bunched up, it's a nice material, blue and kind of clingy. When did they start getting nice clothes?

"It's okay," Mikey continues, like he does every night when Calum knees him off the bed, caught in a nightmare. "It's okay. Let's get out of here."

Someone else is there and this is what Calum hates the most, the humiliation of being injured, of having people worry over him. "Why didn't we think this through?" It's Ashton. He sounds impatient.

There's a whistle of rockets and Calum's mouth is filling with that bitter taste again. He's bitten his lip, or maybe his tongue. He spits blood out on the stone of the rooftop. He swears the blast shakes the foundation. More screams from the crowd. How many people here? Thousands, tens of thousands.

No one is touching him anymore. They left him alone on stage, all the lights on, three bullet holes, leaving him to die. He wonders if he's going to die with everyone looking at him, like this is just another part of the show. He'd given all he had to give, his time and his talent and his friends and body and heart and soul and now his life, too, _are you not entertained?_

An act of a madman. Another boom. He feels the darkness press in on him. Niall used to describe what claustrophobia felt like. Like drowning, and no one there to save you. Drowning, and seeing everyone else breathing underwater.

They left him here to die.

And then someone is touching him, and Calum is coaxed into sitting. The hand in his is not Michael's comforting square grip, the one he knows everywhere, even in sleep, but there's callouses on this one, too. "You're okay. It's going to be over soon. Do you think you can make it inside?"

He knows that Luke's only there because Calum's causing a scene, but all he can think about is the hand, the one that means he doesn't have to die alone.

.

There's fireworks all that night, seemingly random. They're all four in the hotel bar but Calum keeps hearing phantom pops.

Michael and Ashton are arguing and it's about him and he's so, so tired but knows he can't sleep, has been tasting pennies all night, fight or flight, he nurses a drink because he's still on pain meds and some other meds and his guts are still fucked up so drinking makes his body go crazy. His ribs hurt. It's been four months and they still ache. He's a little messed up.

The bartender is a Hispanic guy with kind eyes and a thick accent and he leaves them alone, lets them all scrape their seats into a little huddle. Their security guys hover in a corner. There's been more security this tour and it's not exactly reassuring. They all carry guns. There's always guns here. Maybe the U.S. was a bad idea.

Calum tries to pay attention because Luke's talking to him for once and when Luke talks he likes to put his hand on you, touch your leg or arm to make sure you're still paying attention to him, and Calum desperately needs someone to keep touching him so he lets Luke talk.

"I've been thinking about 'Jet Black Heart,'" Luke says. They've been doing an acoustic version at the concerts and it's going okay. Calum's breath control isn't really all there and so Ashton sings with him on his parts. But Calum thinks the song is funny and so he's been throwing himself into vocal practice, trying to get better so they trust him to sing again. Mikey likes to claim that he doesn't have to do anything to earn their respect but, like, whatever. Calum catches them staring at him sometimes, long stares when they think he isn't looking. He's trying to do better. He loves this band more than anything. He doesn't want to leave.

Luke touches his knee. Calum focuses. "It's in present tense, and, like, most songs are in present tense, right? _I've got_ not _I had_. Or whatever. And I've been wondering why we do that."

"Sounds like writing," Calum says. "I'm off the clock."

"I'm serious! Name one song in past tense."

"Of ours?" Calum tries to muster curiosity. He likes games like these. Sometimes on the bus or waiting around - there's so much waiting around, tech set ups and green rooms and back stage - they'll play Name That Tune, whistling snatches for each other, each trying to think of the most ludicrous or childish or obscene or obscure. "Amnesia?"

"Okay, one," Luke concedes. "I wonder about it, though. I mean, most songs start as stories or as scenes which are inevitably in past tense, so..." He looks like he's about to launch into a thesis on past versus present tense in songwriting and Calum just can't, it's after midnight and he's had too much to drink and his body is not his own, there's bullets rattling around inside of him.

He's trying not to listen to Michael and Ashton, how they keep shooting him looks, how their voices have dipped and now they're whispering about him, which is so much worse.

"I'm gonna go to bed," Calum says. He looks at Michael and then makes himself look away. He desperately wants Mikey there tonight. He thinks if someone doesn't touch him he'll float away for good. But they also haven't had The Talk yet, and being shot has been a study in daily humiliations, and he's allowing himself to be proud about this. To not beg for nightly attention.

"Cal..." that's Luke. But he's just standing there, not touching, and Calum knows that if he stays in this bar he's going to break down and beg, right here, for just a hand on his arm, a hand in his hand, anything, please.

He keeps staring at Michael, who's back to arguing about him. Calum's head pounds, a rhythmic beat. Okay then. Okay.

.

They're not in Philadelphia anymore. They've gone South. They're zigzagging. This is Baltimore. Lots of water and ships and bars and they explore on foot but it gets seedy fast and they're ushered back into cars.

Ashton corners Calum at lunch. They're eating outside because there's a breeze and they can pretend it smells like home. Michael is sleeping on a picnic table and Luke is nodding along to a crew story. Ashton is shirtless. Calum hasn't been shirtless since the surgery. The long scar splits him in two and the shirts hold him together better than safety pins. He has a scar over one hip bone, a big, nasty scar. He looks almost as bad as he feels.

Ashton keeps his voice low. "What's happening between you and Mikey?"

Calum blinks. Ashton's been sort of frustrated with Calum all tour but he hasn't said anything, really, up until now. "Nothing."

"I just think," Ashton plows on, "that if you're sleeping together you should at least tell me and Luke. Because you never know what it can do to the dynamic, and we've all seen what happens when a, you know, intra-band couple breaks up, and I'd really like to avoid that."

"It's not like that," Calum tells the orange he's peeling. They had a couple hundred shows to witness the tragedy of Larry and Calum promised himself a long time ago that he would never do that, break hearts the way theirs had broken. "Really," his voice cracks on the word.

Ashton's voice go impossibly lower. "I don't want to see you get hurt. Either of you. But you most of all."

"I'm fine," Calum says, like he's said a thousand times to Ashton. "I'm handling it." Which isn't quite the same as being fine, but he can't keep track of his own lies anymore, they're floating away from him, meaningless smiley faced balloons.

"You're not," Ashton says, all serious. "You're not supposed to be. You were shot and we still don't know why. You died on that fucking table. I don't know, mate. I don't know if this tour is the best thing for you-"

"What?" Calum feels slow and stupid and disconnected from his body. "What do you mean I died on the table?"

Ashton looks stricken. His mouth moves for a while before he finally forces the words out. "I thought you knew."

"What does that mean?" Calum knows he's getting louder, can see Luke look over at them, though the crew is still telling stories.

"It's - like you said, you're fine, I swear, it just means your heart stopped."

"On the operating table?"

Now Luke's getting to his feet. Face a mask of concern.

"Yes," Ashton looks torn, seems to know what this truth is doing to Calum but has never been less than completely honest with his bandmates. "Well, and in the ambulance. A couple of times. Three times."

Calum doesn't know why this information slams into him but it does. It all makes sense. This is why he's felt like there's something rattling around inside of him - it's not the bullet it's his own heart, trying to go on long after it was supposed to. He's supposed to be dead. He starts backing away.

Ashton grabs his wrist. They refer to it as his domestic abuse grab. He does it all the time, because the band likes to walk away mid-argument.

This time, Calum flinches, hard.

"What's going on?" Mikey had been asleep but now he's there, putting his whole body between Calum and Ashton, as if Calum needed protecting, as if Ashton wouldn't combust before hurting him, just burn on the spot.

Calum goes to wrench his hand away only to realize Ashton is no longer holding it.

"Are you okay?" Michael asks, and it's a different way of asking the question, as if he cared about the answer beyond the physical.

Of course he's okay, he's alive and there's a breeze in his hair and they're on tour and the people he loves are healthy and alive.

Of course he's not okay, he died four months ago and no one ever bothered telling him that he's not supposed to be here, that he'd left some vital part of him behind in that hospital, on that stage, and he's less, now, less human.

Ashton is apologizing and Calum feels bad, he really does, he doesn't know why he keeps making everyone apologize to him or for him, but he's so tired and his vision's all blurry and he thinks back to those first weeks after the surgery where everything was hard and the pain was always within reach, and he doesn't know how much longer he can keep on doing this.

The worst part is that this is what he asked for. Everyone - and decisions in this business are rarely unanimous but this was really everyone, the boys and the label and Management and their crew and everyone - had told Calum to take some time. Time was the greatest enemy of success, especially with young pop rock acts that were definitely, for real not a boy band. Time made you irrelevant.

It was Calum who said that, if they could rebook the venues, he wanted continue with the tour. He'd wanted to prove that he could still do something. That he still belonged here.

But maybe he was wrong, because he's been throwing himself at Michael obviously enough that Ashton has picked up on it, and he's tired, all the time, and he can't eat and he can't sleep and he just wants everyone to continue with life as normal and he can't stand the extra attention but he also craves nothing more than for people to see him and hear him and care about him and he knows it's all selfish, to want everything at once, but he was shot and he doesn't even know why and apparently he died three times and some force kept bringing him back.

He wonders if this whole time he's been making a fool of himself.

.

They all remember why they're doing this when they got on stage.

Calum's still getting cards and gifts and flowers and the fans hold up coordinated signs - social media is amazing - that say "We love you baby Cal!" and "Get well soon!" and, his favorite, "Thank you." And he loves all that, just eats it up, but he loves other things more.

Like how whenever they start they first heys of "She Looked So Perfect" he feels utterly sixteen, the notes and the song where the crowd brings it and he gets it then, why he endures - everything. It feels like he spends most of his days swimming through a fog that lifts only when he performs. Like the stage is sending energy up his spine and down to his fingertips, and he forgets about the bullets rattling around inside of him and he forgets that his heart stopped and he shouldn't be here and he's just a boy playing music that means the world to him.

But even on stage the feeling persists, the hard knot that lives permanently under his rib cage, the one he hasn't told anyone about, not even Mikey.

It's worse when he's on his own on the side of the stage, looking at the audience looking back at him, and even with the chords and the beat and the boys beside and behind him, flanking him like a united front, he can't help but feel, very occasionally, very alone.

And then it's his turn to sing, and he lets himself drown in the music.

.

They're in North Carolina and it's raining cats and dogs and probably horses too, and Calum knows he should be worrying about the outdoor event they have tomorrow but it's cozy inside the hotel, Michael sitting close, the hall door cracked open letting anyone in and anyone out.

Michael's got one of Calum's hands in one of his and it feels intimate, how close they're sitting, how Calum's knee is pressed to Mikey's knee, how he can feel Mikey breathe long slow deep breaths as hunches over and concentrates on his work.

"You're making a right mess," Calum teases.

"Look, I'm working with a tiny brush and you've got surprisingly tiny nails." Michael's concentrating very seriously but still Calum's hand is more black paint than skin at this point and they've only done four fingers, Michael working his way meticulously up and down Calum's thumb now.

Everything about their closeness feels long and comfortable and sweet, and Calum is already nostalgic for this moment, for the pounding of rain against the glass, the brush of Mike's hair against his shoulder, for even the sharp smell of the nail polish.

And of course he has to go and ruin it. Because it's him, and he hasn't done anything right, not in months, maybe longer.

It's so stupid, too. He's just flexing his arm, the one that's not being painted. Hand first. Rolling out the shoulder. Stretching towards the ceiling. And something pops. Breaks. Tears.

His first thought is that it's stitches. His second thought is that he had all the stitches taken out weeks ago. His third thought is pain, excruciating pain, and he hunches double to protect himself and he hisses in a breath and he tries not to moan.

"Cal? What hurts? Is it your ribs?"

Michael's hands slip up his shirt and they're pressing different places, his chest, his abdomen, his kidneys, the hands warm, hot even, and suddenly Calum can't stand them, can't stand the thought of being touched because he's breaking apart and no one, not even Mikey, can hold him together.

"Is it your heart? There's no blood. Is it internal? Should I get a medic?"

The questions are rapid fire and Calum thinks that this is what being numb is. It's not about shutting down but about feeling everything at once, the pain, the physical pain, but also the hands on his skin and the rain on his skin and months ago, all those months ago, the lights all trained on him.

"Don't touch me," Calum rasps, because his therapist - he's so messed up he has a therapist - told him to ask for things.

But he's touring with the most codependant people on the planet and Michael stays. "I need to know if you're okay."

The hands are pressing again and Calum feels something build behind his eyes, like a headache, a pounding red pulse. The hands are hot and hard and have him pinned to the bed. He squeezes his eyes shut. "You're hurting me."

Those are the magic words these days. Michael's gone and Calum instantly wants him back.

"I just want to help," Michael says, sounding a little broken.

And that's too much for Calum to stand because fuck it he knows he's just the brown bassist who doesn't fucking shine as bright as the others but he should have the market cornered on broken this year.

"I didn't ask for your help," Calum snaps, feeling itchy all over. This headache is everywhere. Pounding behind his bullet wounds. "I don't need another doctor, Mikey. All I've got all doctors. There's about forty out there. Ashton and Luke and Zoe and everyone. I thought you were the last friend I got."

Mikey opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. "Calum, of course I'm your friend. But you can't just expect me not to try to help you, if I can. Calum..."

"Stop saying my name like I don't know it." All of his bullet holes throb. His head pounds. His eyes, surely, will burst from his skull. "I can't be here sometimes. I don't think I'm supposed to be here. I - I died three fucking times. People look at me and I think - do they really see me? Ashton and Luke - it's like I'm a ghost. Like they can walk right through. I fucking need you, okay? Cuz - cuz of what Niall said. I'm drowning."

"Cal, baby, you're not making any sense. Of course you're not -"

"I can't - it's like a loop. I don't even know what starts it but - I can't stop being on stage. And feeling being shot. I felt it. And I thought - oh shit, I'm going to die. And you weren't there. No one was there. It was - it was just me. And all the lights and all the - all the girls screaming and it was like I was a movie. Like it was just part of the show. And now Calum just dies! And the show goes on!"

He's crying, it's embarrassing but he can't stop, he's a gaping wound and the tears can't fill it but they help.

He wipes some snot on his shirt. "I think I'd be okay if I didn't know I died."

"Ash shouldn't have said that."

"He should've. It's the only honest thing he's said to me for weeks." He feels like the worst of it's passed, like the pain is receding but now he's just drained and the room is still too much, the smell of the nail polish overwhelming, the rain - like he can hear the individual drops.

Michael's still so close, eyes huge, mouth wet, and Calum remembers falling in love, remembers it with a surge of intensity that almost drives the aching away. "Do you ever think of me," he asks, even though he knows he's shouldn't, he can't help himself. "The way you did last year?"

Last year, when everything sort of came together in one long and wild night, how they were just writing together, late in the studio, how there was pizza between them, and Michael warm and sleep-sweet, how they were piled on one couch even though it was just the two of them and the big empty room, how Calum suddenly noticed, all at once, that Michael's voice was high and smooth, how he couldn't even describe it without using Michael's name, how when the other boy sang a harmony, unerring, for a melody Calum had just written it felt like something twanging true in his soul. How Michael had kissed him back. How, when Calum pressed his body down for more Michael met him inch for inch, like there was nothing he'd rather be doing.

It takes all of Calum's courage to look at Michael's face. And then it takes all of his courage to look away. The look on Mikey's face is enough. Calum's disappointment is too large to swallow, the slam of heartbreak a lump in his throat. Okay then. Okay.

Michael puts a hand on his arm and Calum feels suddenly embarrassed, can't even look at him. "Please don't touch me." He's apparently not too embarrassed to beg. His voice breaks. Of fucking course it does. He scoots backwards and finds only the leg of the bed, so he pulls himself up and collapses back into it, curling into a ball away from the other boy.

He's so tired, lost in a stormy sea of his own creation. He just burst the dam wide open and now even Michael is sufficiently pushed away.

He's done enough breaking for today. He lets the tide of sleep pull him under.

.

There's a hand in his hair but Calum is sure, for a while, that he's still asleep.

"Explain it again, Mike. Small words. Deep breaths." That's Ashton, the Ashton of the past few months, the one who takes charge and asks Calum several times an hour if he's okay.

"What was I supposed to say?" Calum knows that tone, the prickly self righteous This Is The Hole I Die In tone that means Mikey is never, ever going to change his mind. "Relationships are - ugly - and - and complicated, and he doesn't need that right now."

There's a hand in Calum's hair, playing with strands. "I think," Luke says, "that we should have a family meeting."

"We're not kids anymore," Michael bites out. This version of Michael is all sharp angles, where the whole world rubs him the wrong way, especially Luke. "We can't just order pizza and make a blanket fort and talk it out."

"I think we need to," Luke says, in that voice he uses sometimes, just with them, the one that sounds so young. The baby of the family. "I don't think what we've been doing is working."

The hand in his hair goes away and Calum can feel them all staring again, he's a monkey in the zoo, just another part of the show. He wants to nudge back into the comforting hand and he wants someone to hug him and he wants Michael to love him back and he wants to be left alone with a guitar and he wants his mother and his sister and he wants everything, all at once, he wants to be selfish.

He wants to tell Michael that if he thinks he's protecting him, Calum, from some sort of large and dangerous and complicated reality, if he thinks that by refusing to be in a relationship he is in some way leaving a part of Calum undamaged, then he obviously doesn't notice, or care, that he, Calum, is slowly unraveling, and soon, all too soon, there will be nothing left of him. 

.

They're all waiting when Calum wakes up. Someone had charmed a chef into preparing the kind of light meal Calum needs, fried bananas, peanut butter, toast spread with - "You broke out the secret Vegemite stash for me?" Calum croaks, and three heads snap up.

"And real orange juice," Luke says.

Calum moves gingerly. The ache came from deep inside. A nameless reminder. You were shot. You are hurt because you've been show."Guys," Calum begins.

"Food first," Luke says. He looks at Calum from under his hair, brushing it away from his face. "Then talking."

Calum's gotten bad at figuring out when he's hungry, and so eats when other people tell him to eat. He takes a banana sandwich and holds it loosely in one hand.

"So?" Michael starts. "Who wants to kick this off?"

Calum runs his tongue over his lips. Raises his hand a little. "Can I just - can I just say? I'm sorry. No, don't say anything. Okay. I'm sorry I've been - this is just harder than I thought. But I'm dealing with it. I'll get - I promise I'll get stronger. And better. So. Yeah, okay."

They're all looking at him. It's Ashton who asks, "Calum, what the hell are you talking about?"

"Just give me until the end of the tour," Calum says, a note of desperation creeping into his tone. "If - if I'm not better by then we can - but I just need a few months before we decide anything." Calum reached for that smile. "I'm fine guys. I can do this."

"We know you can," Luke says, "but you're not fine."

Calum's shoulders fall, limp all over. He squeezes his eyes shut. "I know. But this is all I have left."

"Let's not talk about the band," Ashton suggests. "Let's talk about you."

That sounds reasonable. Except. Except Calum has to know. Thinks it's not fair, if he doesn't know. "Please," he says, and he didn't know when he woke up that he was going to have to beg his best friends for this but here they are. "I just have to know. I'm still in the band, right? Even though I'm messed up?"

They're all just staring at him again. Calum sucks in a breath and holds it. "Yeah, Cal." Michael says. It's the first time he's said anything, the first time he really looks at Calum, and, Jesus, Calum can get used to being looked at like that. Like he's precious. "This isn't worth doing without you."

"We can't do it without you," Ashton chips in, firmly. "We won't."

Calum blinks rapidly and Luke closes his fingers over Calum's hand and Calum jerks away, looks at them all, looking back at him. And he bursts into jagged tears that don't stop. He drops his head into his hands and feels goosebumps break out all over. It's that terrible feeling of wanting to stop crying and being unable to stop and being embarrassed by being unable to stop.

His guts ache, and the ache grounds him.

He wants them to pinky promise. He wants to make them understand how messed up he is. He wants a hug.

And he gets one. Michael is on his feet first, pulling him close, and Calum lets himself bend against the strong lines of Mikey, let's himself sag into what is left of Mikey's boyish softness, and he lets himself breathe, and pretend this is love.

"I'm not okay," Calum admits. It's what he's been trying to say all summer, too scared by his own scars. He didn't realize what a burden he was carrying until now. "I'm. I. Hurt, all the time. I can't eat. I'm - disgustingly thin. It's hard to sing. It's hard to do anything." He feels Michael grip him harder. Something in his guts aches at the contact but he knows that if he pulls away he'll fall apart. Michael was his glue all along.

Luke and Ashton are there, too, petting him, their words coming all at once. He's sobbing. He's absolutely fucking breaking down and they're all trying to scoop the bits of him back together.

"You're okay, Cal. Hey, babe, you're okay, stop crying, Cal, please."

"We'll help you. Let us help you."

"We love you."

"It's a fucking band. It can fucking -"

"I need to do this," Calum breaks in, cutting off Ashton who was on the edge of a rant. "I - please, I need to be in the band."

"You are!" Ashton slashes a hand through the air, furious, halo of hair flying. "We're not kicking you out because you got shot. Did you really think we would? Jesus _fuck_ Cal!"

"Don't yell at him," Michael says. He's still holding Cal close. "Lower your voice, Ash, we're all on the same side."

But Ashton is too far gone. "All summer - you've been feeling like this all summer and you didn't tell us because you were afraid we'd - what? Dump you on the side of the road? Do you really think - ?"

"No," Calum says, quickly. Of course they wouldn't dump him on the side of the road. He loves these boys with every part of himself. They're kind, and gentle. It's their gentleness that he can't stand. "You would have let me stay, when you could have someone better."

A flash of recognition ripples across their faces, and Calum knows he was right. They would have let him stay, even while critics and fans and anyone with an internet connection tweeted and mumbled about how he shouldn't be there. _Oh, of course the band had some duty to one of their members, and it was really a shame that he'd been shot at all, and at one of their own concerts at that, but really, if 5sos expected to be anything like its old self they probably needed to drop the dead weight._

Luke looks like he's mulling something over, and decides on levity. "We have managed to restrain ourselves," he points out, slowly, "even with bass players growing on trees."

"You're not very good," Ashton joins in.

"But neither are we," Michael adds, mock mournfully. "We deserve each other."

Calum can barely make himself look at Mikey, but he forces himself to. They're not kicking him out. They're too good for that. But him and Michael - there was no contract between them, just the childish tendrils of love that had only tightened over time.

"Do we?" Calum asks. "Deserve each other?"

Luke and Ashton melt away, and Calum knows he'll have to find them both later, individually. There's a summer of awkwardness between them, and Calum's not selfish enough to think it's all his fault. Luke will apologize, and have a bit of a cry himself, say that he had never meant to ignore Calum but that he'd just been so scared, kept having nightmares of the concert, of the shot ringing out, and looking over and seeing Calum on the floor, collapsed, the bottom dropped out of his world, how he didn't even believe it at first, assumed it was another in a lifetime of close calls, that they were too young and, yes, too rich, too famous, for anything truly terrible to happen, and after the hospital he'd sequestered himself away and tried to write songs to explain his feelings to himself but they all sounded pathetic, and he wanted to see Calum, he really did, but every time he got the nerve up he'd feel pathetic, too, his own fear and hurt paling in comparison.

And Calum would listen to all of this, stuttered out, and they'd fall asleep in one bed like they did when they were young and had to double up, young and cold and warming themselves on each other. Luke was still the youngest, and Calum felt the same big-brother-ish compulsion to comfort that he'd always felt.

The conversation with Ashton would be different, Ashton the opposite, the oldest, the one who felt the need to fix. Calum would slip into Ashton's room and listen to a half hour of rapid-fire suggestions. Is he sleeping enough? Eating enough? _You should work out with me, Cal, I've been looking into some workouts that are like physical therapy, I'll help you, but you have to get your weight back up_. Ashton would talk about security at venues and their own security, how he's noticed Calum's wary around the guns and he's trying to find out if they can hire muscle in America that don't carry and still be safe. _And are you seeing that therapist, Cal? You really should. I've always thought we all probably need therapy, but you most of all._

 _Me most of all?_ Calum would repeat.

And Ashton's whole facade would crumble, and he'd look just as young and scared as Luke. _I wanted,_ he would explain, _to keep you safe. I saw it happening. But I was so far away. Behind the drums._

_It's okay._

_Oh, Cal,_ Ashton would say, taking a deep breath, a breath wet with unshed tears. _It's not okay. It's not. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry._

And, overcome, Ashton would pull Calum close. Not quite tall enough to kiss Calum on the forehead, so he would kiss him on the mouth, a wet, soft kiss. They had kissed before - the band, especially when they were young, existing in a state of barely suppressed sexual tension - but it was their first grown-up kiss in a while, and the first kiss that wasn't about the niceties of foreplay. Calum's body, riddled with scars, against Ashton's smooth and tan one. Calum would sigh a little, and Ashton would open his mouth, and Calum would laugh, just a little, and pull away.

 _You cad,_ Calum would say, in a fake English accent, to break the tension of the moment. _You know I have a boyfriend._

Because Michael was waiting for him. Michael, who had stayed with him in the hospital, protective and doggedly loyal, unwilling or unable to leave. Michael, who had held him after the fireworks and the nightmares, who was so scared of breaking Calum that he touched him, feather-light.

Michael, who took on most of the responsibility of negotiating less performances, of clearing out their schedule so Calum could rest, could find a medication regime that didn't leave him in pain. Who told Calum, _not tonight._ Who told him, _rest now._ Who reminded him, _I'll be here in the morning._

Michael, who touched Calum's scars with exactly the same reverence he used when touching the rest of his skin.

Who said, _I love you. I've always loved you._

And Calum felt like his words had been all used up. By the screaming. By the explanations. By the apologies. So when Michael said I love you, Calum just buried himself into his boyfriend's sturdy chest. 

_Okay,_ Calum said. Okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote most of this months ago, and even though almost no one is reading 5sos I guess I'm posting this for the lovely people who left me reviews on the first part, and for my little sister, and for me, too, I guess, because I kind of liked how it turned out, even though it's sad.


End file.
